The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) is likely to phase out Contactless Smart Cards (CSC) to promote the National Common Mobility Cards (NCMC).
BMRCL's CSC are closed-loop cards and can be used for travel only on the Bengaluru Metro. However, the RuPay NCMC, which is an open-loop card, is in line with the 'One Nation, One Card' initiative, making them interoperable across all transport systems in the country. NCMC can also be used for shopping, retail stores, and fuel outlets.
BL Yashwanth Chavan, BMRCL Chief Public Relations Officer told Moneycontrol, "We are now planning to phase out CSC to reduce the burden of passengers having different cards for travel and shopping needs."
The Metro agency has also restricted the sale of CSC between 8 am to 11 am and 5 pm to 8 pm from August 21, while RuPay NCMC will be available for sale at stations throughout the operational hours.
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He said that they are now working on a plan to transfer the remaining balance of passengers from the existing CSC to NCMC. "We are working on the modalities, and the testing is ongoing; the facility will soon be available to the passengers."
In March 2023, BMRCL along with RBL rolled out the NCMC, but only around 5,400 cards have been issued so far.
The card has yet to become popular among passengers because the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), the city's lifeline with a daily ridership of around 4 million, is not ready to accept NCMCs on its buses yet.
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"BMRCL is taking steps to improve the experience of NCMC cards and make them more convenient for commuters across all Metro stations from August 21. In this connection, to have a Minimum Know Your Customer (KYC), passengers should self-register on the nammametro.agsindia.com website or the BMRCL RBL Bank NCMC mobile application and also share the registration number/mobile number with the operator at the ticket counter" said a BMRCL statement.
The NCMC card will cost Rs 50 and will also offer a 5 percent discount on travel fares; it is also available at RBL bank branches.
BMRCL has a daily ridership of around 6.1-6.2 lakh. Since the commencement of operations in 2011, BMRCL has issued around 40 lakh CMC cards, and currently, around 60 percent of passengers are CSC users and the remaining are using tokens and QR-code.
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In November 2022, BMRCL launched QR code ticketing, allowing passengers to procure single-journey transit tickets through WhatsApp and the Namma Metro mobile app. There are around 55,000 daily QR code ticket users now.
"We are now encouraging more people to use QR tickets instead of tokens, and its popularity has been growing over the past few months," said Chavan.
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